Last weekend I went to Marco Rojas’s yoga class at Pure Yoga. It’s listed as “Vinyasa 2” but it was nothing like any vinyasa class I’ve ever been to. We held poses for a LONG time, dug deep to explore them, and paused after each one to examine how it affected us. I had done all of the postures before, many times in fact, and yet each one felt new. Marco took us to the very edge of our physical practice to suspend our judgment and stop the chatter of our minds. And then he asked to stand on that edge with our eyes closed. We went through the entire class as if we had lost our sense of sight. We were breathless when he gave us the challenge.
How did Marco get this idea to ask us to close our eyes to raise the bar? He was on the top of his game, teaching at Yoga Works to classes filled with 70+ students. His ego was getting the best of him, and then a woman came to his class one day with a dog, a seeing eye dog. Instead of modifying for this woman, he made everyone else in the class modify and have her experience of yoga. He said it changed his teaching and his students forever. They could no longer look outside for a dristi, a focal point. They had to find their focus within. We all do.
If you look within your own heart, where does your focus lie?
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Christa Avampato 